In this series I am going to talk about my journey in Splinterlands.I am a brand new player. One that has no history with this game and extremely limited experience with block chain games in general.Today I am going to speak directly about how botting is allowed in a competitive game like Splinterlands and how different groups feel about it

TL;DR

Let me be extremely clear, personally I am new enough to blockchain games that I don't really know what my stance on the subject is. I know that in playing townstar there is an auto-seller that is available to the general public. It seems like with the games that are available out there, this is accepted practice as the game developers don't want to tell player bases what they can and can't do until governance hits.

What is a BOT??

"A bot is basically an account that has been programmed to select a certain team line-up when it sees a certain combat rule/mana cap combination. So basically, it's just a big spreadsheet that says IF you see this THEN play that". @nateaguila

There are many options that are out there if you choose to use a bot. A simple youtube search will show you multiple options that are out there.

TO BOT OR NOT TO BOT THAT IS THE QUESTION:

There might not be a hotter topic in the Splinterlands community than botting. I have spent the last week speaking to new and old players alike on their thoughts regarding bots in Splinterlands.

• Is it cheating?
• Is it needed for low que times?
• Is it inevitable?
• Is it fair?
• Is it helping the new players through more gifting?

As I was having a deep discussion with my guild mates one of the things that we brought up was that we have been trained in regards to botting in other games pretty much our entire lives.

But now we are talking decentralized gaming in which we the players will eventually have governance over. The rules are what we would like them to be, and we have assets that we own, not the gaming company.

We as a society have been taught, and to a degree programmed...stay in line, be quiet, do as you're told, listen to your elders, if you can't say something nice.... But decentralization allows us the users and essentially the owners to decide what is the most beneficial for the game.

What do the Devs Say?

After some conversations with @nateaguila he said the following which I find extremely interesting.

We're not going to tell people what they can do with their car. They spent money for the right to do what they please. Now having said that, it doesn't mean we are pro-bot. It's more like...bot-neutral. Which is necessary if we are to continue down the path of decentralization.

What does YouTube Say ?

Here is a youtube video in which @jeronimorubio talks about his experience with bots in the game. It's actually been difficult to find anyone who speaks openly about this on youtube.

What does the player base say ??

So the answers from the player base have been extremely fascinating. I have found some have absolutely no problem with running bots and some absolutely despise them. Here are some of the quotes from players that I collected over the past week.

I cannot stand playing bots, especially in big tournaments. Because I feel it is unfair for us to have 2 minutes to pick a team , but these bots are already programmed to know every best possible outcome for every single mana and ruleset @stealthtrader

I think that games that try to keep out engines/botting/scripting/machine learning/ai will in the end shrink the player base, and the games that embrace it will go into the future where it's natural for gameplay to be augmented by machines. @almightymelon

The thing about bots though is that a lot of the big bot groups actually are the biggest advocates for new players. Using a good portion of their rewards towards helping new players. @bragurr

The game liquidity without bots would be low, although I'm not a fan of bots taking all the leaderboard rewards @bragurr

Bots are a necessary evil, while I like that they keep queue times down. I feel they shouldn't be allowed to participate in leader board challenges. I hope with Spells and new cards bots lag behind in skill and I hope the game becomes less bot friendly. @sl-guides

Potential solutions?

@kira1995 has a fantastic blog post right here that everyone should read (link provided below)

@kira1995/splinterlands-ranked-player-vs-bot-pairing-imbalance

Beyond this, here are some of the ideas that the player base that I spoke with has suggested:

• Split the leaderboard for bots and non bot accounts keeping top 20 for player run accounts only.
• Remove bots from tournaments
• Continue to dis-incentivize botting by making it more profitable for actual players.
• Require players to let mods know that they are going to have an account participating in botting so that they can tag the account for the split board. Then after that, whoever is caught botting by report of evidence, such as random strings of surrenders or submitting too many matches within such a small time frame, then temporary cut earnings by a percentage, or entirely for a temporary amount of time and give the player a warning message that if this activity continues, the ability to earn for that account would be cut entirely, but he may still have control of his assets. @kira1995

My Thoughts

So the question still remains...are the bots good or evil? The answer probably lies somewhere in between. From a noobs perspective I'm not sure there is a clear and defined answer either. After many conversations I have determined the following:

• As the player base expands and governance becomes real we can vote on the ruleset that we allow in our game.
• Most players seem to feel bots are inevitable with money and gameplay involved.
• With the new rental system just around the corner will people turn to this instead of botting for cash...I guess we will see.

This has been an extremely interesting topic and I hope to dive even deeper into this type of content in the future.

Join me in my journey through Splinterlands?